Lead institution:
Stazione Zoologica ‘Anton Dohrn’ – Italy
The observational program Long-Term Ecological Research MareChiara (LTER-MC) has been regularly monitoring the ecosystem of the Gulf of Naples, a densely populated northwestern Mediterranean region of high economic and conservational value, since the mid-1980s.
Environmental variables measured at the LTER-MC reference site include abiotic factors (i.e., temperature, irradiance, salinity, dissolved oxygen, inorganic and organic nutrients, carbon and particulate nitrogen, dissolved organic carbon) and biological variables (fluorescence, chlorophyll and other photosynthetic pigments, picoplankton, and heterotrophic bacteria, protistan and metazoan plankton).
The possibility to access enhanced in-situ biological information (through innovative optical and omics technology) and to conduct experiments testing hypotheses arising from long-term observations makes LTER-MareChiara crucial for (i) an improved understanding of marine ecosystem dynamics and (ii) the sustainable management of marine resources in the Northwest Mediterranean.
Start date: 01/01/1984
End date: 01/02/2032
Lead Contact: Domenico D’Alelio (domenico.dalelio@szn.it)